


Through the Red Tape

by lantadyme



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:11:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantadyme/pseuds/lantadyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prowl shows up on Kimia with a new top secret project for Brainstorm to work on. Chromedome doesn’t have clearance but he still decides he wants to know what Prowl’s doing. Cue a lot of snooping around asking the kinds of questions he hasn’t had to ask since he left the New Institute. Good thing forensics gave him a little practice in detective work.</p>
<p>Set somewhere between Spotlight: Kup and AHM 15.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Red Tape

**Author's Note:**

> In case you haven't read Bullets, the Exit Rooms are Kimia's rec center, sort of the less fun version of Swerve's bar.

Brainstorm dances across the Exit Rooms, pointing his fingers like pistols at every single person he passes by. Even without a mouth, it's impossible to miss that he's beaming. He is practically vibrating with excitement. He stops in front of their table, still bouncing on his feet, and points directly at Chromedome. 

"Big news. Huge news." 

Chromedome sets his chin in the palm of one hand, humored. "Okay, I'll bite. What's the news?" 

"Can't tell you. Classified. So classified it goes all the way back to High Command classified." 

Rewind sighs. 

"But you're going to tell me anyway, right?" 

Brainstorm climbs into the seat across from Chromedome and sets both his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced conspiratorially. "Nope. Classified. As much as I'd love to tell you, I can't. Especially not with the living cameraman around." 

Chromedome drums his fingers on the table. "I feel a 'but' coming on." 

"But!" Brainstorm jumps into that invitation instantly. "While the nature and scientific expertise of my new and upcoming project is under absolute wraps and cannot be shared with anyone, no matter the method of torture involved, some of the contract was kind of pointless so I'm going to bend those rules to tell you that Kimia is going to be hosting a new researcher very, very shortly!" The excited pitch of his voice ticks up over those last few words. 

Chromedome thinks for a bit, weighing out potential researchers. A lot of them are either dead or already on board, but it doesn't really matter because he has a pretty big hunch he knows exactly who Brainstorm is not-so-subtly alluding to. 

"Perceptor," Rewind says, clearly unimpressed with Brainstorm's ability to hold classified information like a sieve holds water. 

"Perceptor!" Brainstorm nods in affirmation. "And I'm going to be working with him. One on one! Brainstorm and Perceptor! Working together! Tell me that doesn't just blow your mind! Can you even imagine the kinds of things we'll get up to?" 

He removes any chance for them to offer some imagination by getting up from the table and dancing away again, fingers cocked. He's still talking, inventing scenarios for himself as he goes. 

Chromedome crosses his arms, elbows still on the table as he watches his friend frolic back to continue his joyride through the station. "Well, I'd say he's going to be insufferable for a while, but he probably won't leave his lab. So that's good news at least." 

"Bet you twenty shanix he faints on the spot when Perceptor walks into the room," Rewind mutters. 

Rewind will absolutely win that bet, but there are some things in life worth losing a gamble on if only for the hilarity. "You're on." 

 

It's not until later when he's in the morgue filing paperwork that Chromedome realizes exactly what "all the way back to High Command classified" means. Halfway through signing off on an autopsy he gets a text ping from Prowl. Prowl who is supposed to be half a galaxy away. Prowl who is requesting a brief meeting with him in about five minutes, in the very room Chromedome is currently standing in. He sets the datapad aside, his identification alphanumeric still incomplete, and reruns verification on the text's galactic positioning just to make sure he's not slipping. Even the third run shows Prowl sent this message from Kimia's very own docking bay. 

Brainstorm had made it painfully transparent that Perceptor was coming in today. Chromedome hadn't really thought much of it until this moment. A quick check with the public docking records shows Perceptor's ship coming in twenty minutes ago. A few more security codes reveal a three passenger operation, two more than Perceptor himself. 

So Perceptor is here, and he's not alone. And apparently Autobot High Command (aka Prowl himself) is along to supervise the installation of this new joint experiment. 

"Well," he mutters to himself, eyeing the messy paperwork on his desk. "This is going to be interesting." 

The room is mercifully more organized than it usually is. Chromedome makes sure all the bodies are put away before the door sounds its casual entrance request. As if High Command doesn't have the master codes to crack any room in Kimia. 

He opens the door for his former partner. "Prowl. Didn't know you were coming to Kimia." 

"I would have sent word ahead, but unfortunately even my current location is highly classified." 

"Right," he says, stepping aside so Prowl can enter. It's been a long time since they were both in a morgue together. Chromedome locks the door before Prowl can ask. "I guess Brainstorm was need-to-know." 

"Brainstorm only knew which of his latest scientific breakthroughs Perceptor would need his expertise in applying. And really, Chomedome, I expect you of all people to understand that I only keep those involved informed on a top secret operation." Prowl looks him over, then looks the whole morgue over. Chromedome wonders what he can calculate from the stale energon stains and the disinfectant stink that never really goes away. "Besides, I knew he'd tell you." 

"Yeah, well sorry for not catching on sooner but I'm a little out of practice with the whole detecting side of forensics. I spend most of my time in here these days." He spreads his hands to indicate the shabby room they're both standing in. Prowl's already done examining it but Chromedome isn't above wasting a little of Prowl's time if Prowl is going to waste his in turn. "But you know that. Of course you know that. Why are you here, Prowl?" 

This is all small talk. Prowl's here to ask something of him. And these days Prowl only ever comes to Chromedome to ask him about business. 

Prowl produces a datapad and hands it to him. He waits for Chromedome to sign the nondisclosure agreement that unlocks the information behind it before he continues. "This is a complicated operation. More complicated than I can explain without granting you higher clearance than even that offers you. Brainstorm's science is going to bring the project as close to what I need as possible, but I could use your expertise as well." 

"My expertise," Chromedome repeats, feeling out the layers of half-truths that Prowl's wrapped around the word. The datapad is heavily censored nonsense about lethal levels of weird isotope radiation and its deterioration effects on Cybertronian physiology and mental status. For a brief second he thinks maybe Prowl is asking him to do an autopsy, hush-hush and under every level of radar imaginable. But then Chromedome looks at him and realizes that doesn't sound quite right. 

It's easy to disappear a coroner after he's done a top secret autopsy. It's not as easy to find a mnemosurgeon with Chromedome's level of experience. 

"Are you asking me to shadowplay someone? Because I told you, I don't do that anymore."

"This isn't shadowplay as much as it's repairing a mind that's already been fragmented." He indicates the datapad still in Chromedome's hands. "Even that much information is more than you should hear, but I know you won't help me unless I give you something to decide against." 

"I can't repair anything if it's already been fragmented past what someone without extensive mnemology training can repair. If Perceptor can't fix it, all I can really do is fabricate new memories that are as similar to the old ones as possible. And I can't even do that if you don't tell me who's lost his marbles and give me a recent brain scan to work off of." Chromedome looks the pad over one last time, memorizing some of the weirder symbols, and then hands it back to Prowl. "I don't think you have that brain scan, because this wouldn't be so weird and covert if you did. I think all you've got is one of your own prediction models. So you are asking me to shadowplay someone, just not in so many words." 

Prowl's poker face doesn't budge. He turns the datapad over in one hand. "You'd be helping someone very important to the Autobot cause." 

"Who?" 

"It's need-to-know." 

For all Chromedome knows, the bot he'd be helping could be the one standing in front of him right now. "You're really failing to recruit me here, Prowl." 

Prowl came in here expecting to ask an easy favor of a former friend and now he's realizing he's played his cards wrong. He pauses for a moment to weigh out exactly how much information to divulge to sway Chromedome to his cause. "He's been out of action for a while now. Assumed dead. It was only recently revealed that he wasn't, and he was rescued." 

"But now he's too crazy to be useful to you." For all of Prowl's hesitance, this new information doesn't really reveal anything. It just backs up Chromedome's suspicion that the well being of this mystery bot with the radiation poisoning isn't as important to Prowl as the eventual end point of the operation itself. He can calculate six hundred things at once but he's never been that good at people on the face-to-face level. 

Chromedome knows he's not getting much more. He's already got more than Prowl would give anyone else. A perk of being former partners. "Look. I can tell that whoever you and Perceptor are trying to save needs help, but I don't work with live patients anymore. I'm out of practice. I don't feel this operation is in my best interests. You'll have to find someone else to help you." 

Prowl's mouth presses into a thin disappointed line, but he saw that coming. It's more of a general disappointment, not with Chromedome directly, which honestly is a bit of a surprise. As is the fact that he hasn't pulled rank yet and doesn't seem likely to. He raises the datapad to wipe all the classified information off of it and then abandons it on the edge of a vacant examination table. 

"All right." There's no trace emotion in his voice. "You've made your choice. Thank you for your time." 

"Really?" Chromedome asks. "That's it?" 

"You were expecting something more?" Prowl doesn't tack the word manipulative onto the end of the sentence, but it does go unsaid. 

"I guess." 

"You don't work with live patients anymore. I can apply pressure in some unfair ways when I need to but I can respect that you're retired." Prowl turns for the door, not meeting his gaze. He has a lot of things on his mind but he definitely doesn't want to reminisce on how their friendship went sour. Not that Chromedome does either. "I have contingency plans, Chromedome. You may have been my first choice, but I wasn't entirely sure you'd help me, anyway. I have alternatives lined up." 

He keys the door open and pauses, one hand on the doorframe. The next sentence is quieter, something he doesn't really think needs to be said. "None of what you were told leaves this room." 

"I understand." He signed the nondisclosure agreement, after all. Declining the job doesn't void that.

"And I forgot to say hello. I haven't seen you in a while. I hope you're doing well." 

That one throws Chromedome. He can't remember the last time Prowl offered him well wishes. "Yeah. You too." 

Prowl glances at him once and then he leaves the morgue. Chromedome finds himself standing there staring a hole through the door, wondering whose livelihood he's just thrown under the bus by declining Prowl's operation. Wondering where that little piece of the old Prowl had resurfaced from, the one he'd assumed he wasn't privy to anymore since the end of their partnership. 

There's something going on here, and even if he isn't going to be doing Prowl's dirty work for him, Chromedome isn't sure he can just sit around not paying attention either. The Autobots as a faction were supposed to have stopped shadowplaying people for the war effort. He'd like to believe that's actually true, but the shady dealings make him wonder if this really goes all the way back to Optimus Prime or if Prowl's working on his own special project. 

He steps over and picks up the datapad Prowl had left behind. It's just a calling card now. It wouldn't still be here if there was anything recoverable in its memory. All he has are the couple of weird radiation symbols he'd memorized and Prowl's vague story about an Autobot presumed dead and then rescued. It's not much to go on if he's planning to poke his non-existent nose around trying to figure out what Prowl's doing, but it might get Brainstorm talking. And Rewind's always good for trivia you never thought you'd need to know in your life. 

 

Rewind gives him that looks when Chromedome sets the datapad down in front of him in their hab suite. That looks that's three parts disapproval and one part curious as to what Chromedome's gotten himself into this time. "Prowl tries to recruit you, and after you decline him the first thing you decide to do is pry into his operation?" 

"Right," Chromedome says, trying to sound more casual and upbeat than he should. 

"And you want me to help." 

"I have a question for you, that's all. I figure I can try to talk Brainstorm into giving me a little more information, but this is about as far as my clues lead me at this point. Short of breaking into secure facilities." 

"No breaking and entering," Rewind says, pointing at him sternly. He sighs and picks up the datapad, looking through the symbols Chromedome wrote down from memory into the blank Prowl's datawipe left behind. Letters in an ancient language that could mean anything. "Am I supposed to be able to make heads or tails of this?" 

Chromedome shrugs. "Hopefully? They're part of some impressive equations on a form of radiation I've never even heard of before. And if you've never heard of something before—" 

"I'm the person to ask," Rewind says, completing the sentence absently. He's still staring at the datapad, probably paging through his internal database and comparing the symbols to ones he has on file. A second of silence stretches out to let Rewind work. 

"I don't know, Chromedome," he mutters eventually. "You've got Prowl involved in this. He's bringing in Brainstorm of all people to try to stabilize the science behind something. That can't end well. Whatever this radiation is has to be high level clearance because I can tell you what these symbols are but not what they mean in context with the equation. They're glyphs from a rare dialect of old cybertronian that've been borrowed. They don't have anything inherently to do with science." He turns the datapad to Chromedome and taps to indicate one of the symbols onscreen. "This one literally means extrastellar cuisine. And this one has to do with native animal group hierarchy. They're just letters. X equals whatever you define it as, and I don't know the definition." 

"Great." 

"I could run a search through the station's database? Crosscheck them against all uses of the symbols as anything other than the dialect itself." 

"That would definitely tip Prowl off." 

"And let him know you told me." 

Chromedome mulls that idea over. He'd definitely rather not chance implicating Rewind, but after his conversation with Prowl this whole thing feels more complicated. "I don't know. This felt like more than just your standard business contract. Out of everyone he could have chosen, he came to me. Even though I'm retired." 

Rewind doesn't like that response. "And?" 

"And he said he knew Brainstorm would tell me about the classified assignment even though it was front and center in his contract not to tell anyone. Because Brainstorm's bad at keeping secrets when he's excited about something, and because we're friends. So Prowl can calculate my friendships into quantifiable prediction models of my likelihood to help him. Even though we haven't spoken in over a century. It's what he does. He predicts things. He's probably at least theorized that I'd tell you something."

Rewind sits back and sets the datapad on the table again. "So say he predicted this. What does that make me? Accessory to conspiracy?" That's a bit of an exaggeration but Chromedome doesn't correct him. Rewind pauses for a moment, thinking it over. He doesn't look nearly as game as Chromedome thought he would, which is a relief. "Look, I'll help you with this but I don't want to be involved. I don't like Prowl. I don't like the things he's dragged you into in the past. I'll look some things up but I don't want to deal with him directly. If you want to go snooping around his operation, that's on you." 

"I wasn't asking you to be in on this, I just had a question. But all right." The farther Rewind stays away from Prowl's machinations, the better, but Chromedome can't say that to him in so many words without him taking it as a challenge. 

"Don't get caught, okay?" Rewind pipes up, pointing at him again to hold his attention. "Or if you do, talk your way out of it. I don't want to see him carry you off in stasis cuffs to lock you away for five thousand years." 

"That's not going to happen, Rewind," Chromedome says fondly. 

"It better not." 

 

Brainstorm doesn't leave his lab for three days. Chromedome pings his friend multiple times a day at every break period, and still there's absolutely no sign of him. Ordinarily he'd just go knock on Brainstorm's door in increasingly annoying patterns until eventually one of them got it to crack, but not this time. Both his lab and Perceptor's are on full lockdown. No one other than those cleared through security gets in or out. 

He doesn't see Prowl once. It's not like he doesn't go looking either. Chromedome snoops around every security door he can think of, staking them out as well as he can on his breaks. He doesn't have clearance. All he can do is wait and hope he catches sight of something that sheds a little light on what's going on in there. Considering who's pulling the strings behind the whole operation, Chromedome knows it isn't likely he'll see much unless someone on the inside wants him to. 

Which means he spends a lot of time spinning his wheels. It's frustrating, but he's been on longer stake outs. 

Rewind's attempts at covert research turn up nothing. He visits the morgue every time a ship brings new bodies into the docking bay for autopsy, poking around all of them making sure they're not the person he's never going to stop looking for. After he's done he drops heavily into the spare chair in Chromedome's office, kicks his legs twice, and distractedly blurts out, "I could talk to Perceptor?" 

"What?" Chromedome asks, equally distracted by the never-ending paperwork that's been piling up on his desk while he snoops around. 

"About the symbols. I could talk to him. I don't know him very well but he's asked my historical expertise on projects a few times. I've been thinking about it, and it's weird that those specific glyphs were chosen, especially since I couldn't find any other scientific reference to them. I haven't been able to find mention of it anywhere. This variety of radiation must be either an extremely new discovery or under deep wraps, but it's bound to have seen a glance Perceptor's way. I could—" 

"I thought you didn't want to be hands-on for this?" He looks up from the war crime report he's halfway through. 

"I don't. I just think it's weird and—" Rewind's almost defensive, like he's not willing to tell Chromedome everything that's on his mind. "I don't know. The classified science seems a little over the top. I don't want you getting in too far over your head." 

Chromedome sets his work aside. He doesn't need to hear it in so many words to tell that Rewind's worried about him. "Look, I haven't even found anything out yet. Brainstorm hasn't left his lab. Neither has Perceptor, for that matter." 

"I know, but it's only a matter of time, right? One of them has to come up for air eventually." 

That's another conversation evasive maneuver. Chromedome looks at him and sighs. 

"What's bothering you, Rewind?" 

He finally looks at Chromedome instead of trying to play down what's on his mind. "I'm not sure I like you poking around this project of Prowl's." 

"I told you, I'll be careful. He's not going to arrest me for conspiracy." 

"Yeah." He's quiet for a moment, thinking that over. Thinking over which words he wants to say next. "That's not what's making me the most uneasy, really." 

The pause that comes afterward is too long to be comfortable. Chromedome has a feeling he knows exactly where this is going and he'd rather not dance around it like they always do. "This isn't about the science or the politics of war, it's about Prowl. You don't like that it's his operation." 

"It's about you and Prowl together," he says, trying to lay out his argument. "You said it yourself that he singled you out, and that he can calculate your friendships into nudging you where he wants you to go. I don't like that. I don't know why you're passing it off as nothing either." 

"You don't even know him." 

"You're right. I don't. But has it not occurred to you that maybe he can use his own friendship with you to get you to do things for him as well? Maybe that's why he let you off so easy the first time. Maybe he wants you to poke around his operation and learn a few things so he can approach you again once you're better informed. Maybe that's what he's playing." 

"I don't know what he's playing, but even if it is something questionable I'm not going to assume he's spinning up a mind game to try to get me back in his pocket again. That's not how he does things. He's not a monster. He's changed since we were friends on Cybertron, but not that much." 

"I know he's not a monster. He's High Command. I trust him to be High Command. What I don't like is when the two of you get into something together and suddenly I know absolutely nothing." 

That stings. Apparently this isn't all about Prowl like he thought it was. 

"That hasn't happened in forever." 

"Yet here we are again," Rewind says. "Prowl asking you to shadowplay someone for him. You could have said yes and kept it classified like he asked you and I wouldn't be any the wiser." 

"But I didn't. I broke code and I told you." Chromedome gets to his feet, hands still pressed on his desk. He understands where Rewind is coming from, but he's getting tired of these accusations. "I'm not going to shadowplay anyone, Rewind. I don't want to! I retired. Do you know how hard it is to retire when your entire career is built on brainwashing people for the war effort? When you have no other skills to speak of and all your friends were in on it and you have to leave them behind? I chose to retire for me. It wasn't easy. You know that!" 

"I know," Rewind says, defensive. 

"You don't trust me." 

It's not a question, and Rewind doesn't dispute it either. "If it was just Prowl coming to meet his friend, fine. But he came here and the first thing he did was ask you to shadowplay someone for him. The very first thing, Chromedome. And I know you thought about it." 

And that's completely true. For all Chromedome is retired, swears up and down that he's done injecting, he does sometimes do consultations on the side without telling Rewind. Rewind suspects but he's never brought it up before. If Prowl had stood in the morgue and given Chromedome a good, honest, necessary reason for him to shadowplay whoever it is he has in Perceptor's lab, he would have done more than consider it. Both he and Rewind know that. And Prowl knows it too. 

"I said no," he says, slowly and firmly. "And then he said he had other options lined up." 

"And that's fine. But until you told me, it was just you and Prowl and your little secrets. Don't get angry at me for not liking that." Rewind shakes his head, exasperated. "I'm worried about you, Chromedome. You're retired but you're still poking around in this, determined to figure out what Prowl's doing. I know how you get about shadowplay. You feel responsible in tiny stupid ways, and it makes you do stupid things." 

"I want to do this, Rewind," he says, trying to be honest. "I don't know if I like what he's doing. And it doesn't matter whether I do or not, but I want to do this anyway." 

"I know. That's why I'll talk to Perceptor. Even if he can't tell us anything about the glyphs, he's been working with Prowl for the past three days. He'll have a feel for what Prowl's planning." 

"Don't talk to Perceptor." It comes out of him almost too fast, more tinged with fear than Chromedome meant it. "You don't need to do this for me." 

"I understand that you think you're protecting me by keeping me in the dark, but that doesn't make it okay. You always do this. You'll jump on a grenade for anyone but as soon as someone asks you to take care of yourself you're suddenly inventing excuses." 

He doesn't know what to say to that. It's mean even if it is true that he struggles with it. Rewind may have said it, but even Chromedome can tell he wishes he'd phrased it to be kinder. 

Chromedome sits back down. They don't say anything for a while, just the two of them sitting there avoiding everything they should be talking about. 

"I should go. I'll leave you to your work," Rewind says eventually as he stands, setting one hand on the corner of Chromedome's desk. He hesitates for a moment before he adds, "I'm sorry." 

"It's fine." He deserved it anyway. "I'm sorry too." 

"Yeah." 

"Don't talk to Perceptor." 

"Just accept the help for once, Chromedome," he says, and then he's out the door. 

 

It shouldn't be a problem, he thinks. It's not like Perceptor's even going to be available to Rewind for questioning. The two of them spend some time going out of their ways avoiding each other. 

He's being selfish, he knows. All Rewind wants is the best for him. Any kind of mnemosurgery is dangerous for the surgeon, but live patients especially. It's not why he quit in the first place, but it's why Rewind gets so angry at the prospect of Chromedome doing people favors on the side. Autopsies are a living right now. Memory tampering is something he's supposed to have left behind. 

Prowl knows the risk too. He hasn't come to Chromedome to ask him to use his skills in a long time. A trained mnemosurgeon as talented as Chromedome isn't something Prowl would let slip away lightly, but he still hasn't pressed his old partner as much as he could have. Prowl let him retired. There's no way he'd ask now if it wasn't deeply important. 

(But Rewind's still right. Prowl knows what motivates him. And if there's one thing Chromedome's wanted ever since he landed this dead-end job on Kimia, it's to be doing something that's not just verifying Decepticon war crimes lightyears from the battles that killed the Autobots in his morgue.)

There are a lot of questions he wants to throw at Prowl and demand all the answers. Unfortunately he still doesn't even have an office number for Kimia's visiting member of High Command. With Prowl's position still restricted he can't just text ping him either. Entire days of stakeouts and information gathering and he has nothing. He's almost ready to find Rewind and blurt out a lousy apology when he gets an Exit Rooms summons from none other than the elusive Brainstorm. 

Chromedome finds him in a corner table all alone, not drinking anything. Brainstorm—notorious war scientist—is pouting. His hands are balled up on the table as he squints at Perceptor across the room. Perceptor has a datapad and some fuel like any normal patron. Chromedome walks over and sits next to his friend. 

"So," he says. 

"So," Brainstorm mutters back. He's preoccupied with watching Perceptor's every move. It's a bit uncomfortable to watch second hand. 

"I'm going to guess that you guys had been in there too long and Prowl decided you needed a break so he threw you both out here," Chromedome offers. 

"No, Prowl's all about his schedule. For some unfathomable reason Perceptor refused to go forward without a break. The guy does science as a hobby and he needs a breather? As good as I am, I do actually need his help to complete what we're doing right now, so Prowl decided I should have a break too and threw me out of my own lab." 

"Really?" 

"Look, Chromedome, I didn't call you here just for the company. What do you need? Why have you been pinging me daily while I'm busy scientifically defying all known moral codes within the comforts of my lab?" 

" _All_ moral codes?" 

He shrugs. "Hmm, a good handful of them are definitely out the window already. I'd tell you which but again—" 

"Classified." 

"Really really classified." 

Chromedome folds his hands, avoiding the temptation to follow Brainstorm's gaze. Perceptor really doesn't need two bots staring at him and Chromedome will always exercise more tact than Brainstorm. "I won't keep you long. I just wanted to ask you some questions. While you were locked away I learned something. It's not just you and Perceptor in the lab together. You've got a patient." 

"I wonder who told you that," Brainstorm asks, deadpan to emphasize how painfully obvious it is that Prowl told him himself. He doesn't look thrilled with the questions he knows are coming next. 

"Does this patient have a name?" 

"Yeah." 

"Just yeah?" 

Brainstorm breaks his staring contest to squint at Chromedome. "Do you not understand what classified means? I like bragging to you because you've been around long enough to witness the true scope of my creative genius, but this isn't some two-bit death ray for the public market. Prowl is running this as close to his chest as he can. This isn't the kind of thing I spill." Brainstorm may have told him about Perceptor, but he's not going to risk his career divulging top secret details. 

"Is there anything you can tell me?" Chromedome asks. Not giving him a name is fair. He has no one else to ask, though. "Prowl said your patient was rescued recently. I'm assuming you're patching him back up." 

"It sounds to me like you should be talking to the organizer instead of the genius scientist underling," he says, abandoning Chromedome's little detective game for serious mode. "I've got a question for you. Why don't you ask him yourself? I don't understand why you're even snooping around when you could be sitting in your morgue doing whatever it is you do in there. If you wanted in on the operation, you should have accepted when Prowl asked you." 

Brainstorm drops that suggestion like it's not even a question that Chromedome would want to do otherwise. Rewind had made the same accusation. And the problem is that Chromedome does want to know what's going on behind all those sealed doors and confidentiality clauses. He wants to know why Prowl needs to drag shadowplay back out of the closet and put it into use again. If anyone has a stake in seeing the New Institute's techniques never used again, it's Chromedome. 

He's starting to realize his only chance of getting there is through participation. He was hoping he wasn't going to have to take this that far. 

"I'm retired. That's why I turned him down." 

"But now you're having second thoughts." 

He's going to have to make a choice here. Either he bites the bullet and goes against all the promises he made to himself and to Rewind about retiring, or he walks away and never learns what's going on in Brainstorm's lab. And unfortunately he's not ready to walk away, as much as he knows he should. Which leaves him in the uncomfortable position of needing to ask Prowl to reoffer his proposal. 

"Does he need me?" he asks. Despite Prowl's insistence that he had other options on the field, Chromedome is still the person best qualified for the job. Everyone involved in this operation knows that, and it's his only chance back in the door. 

"Prowl seems confident that Perceptor can handle that side of the science." 

He'd expected Prowl to implement Perceptor as his replacement but it's still uncomfortable to hear. "Are you sure Prowl's not waiting for me to come find him?" 

Brainstorm shrugs. "I don't think he is. Honestly I was a little surprised you hadn't shown up yet. Prowl has ways of getting people to change their minds after the fact, and he knows you better than most. You've obviously been thinking about it since you let him walk out of your morgue." 

"I haven't decided on reoffering." 

He doesn't seem convinced. "Look. Go talk to Prowl. You'll be cramping my style with Perceptor, but I know you're not asking me to tell you to do the right thing here. Morals have never really been my specialty. I'm more the unholy fusion of things that should not be." 

Sometimes Chromedome needs to stop and question his choice in friends. "I've been looking for Prowl. I don't know where he is on Kimia." 

Brainstorm thinks for a moment and then pulls out a pen to scribble a comm number down on a napkin. He slides it over to him. "Don't say I never did anything for you, Chromedome. Or, well, if Prowl asks if I did anything for you, please say no. But you know what I mean." 

That's Chromedome's cue to scram. 

"Yeah," he says as he stands, making sure to put the napkin somewhere he won't lose it. 

He's detached, still trying to sort through where he wants to go from here. It's not until he's moving again that he realizes Rewind's standing in the Exit Rooms entranceway, holding Prowl's discarded datapad in one hand. He's watching Chromedome. Their gazes meet for a moment before Rewind crosses the mostly empty room and makes his way directly for Perceptor's table. 

Rewind greets Perceptor as personably as he always does. Handshake between colleagues. He slides in next to Perceptor and Rewind asks a few questions that Chromedome can't hear this far away. They're having a conversation about what's on that datapad. A conversation that goes from casual to serious very fast. 

Chromedome sinks back into his seat next to Brainstorm. He definitely can't leave now. 

Brainstorm laughs under his breath. "Oh I get it. You two are scheming." 

"We're not scheming," he mutters back. "I asked him not to talk to Perceptor but it looks like he didn't listen to me." 

"You still told him. Once you've got two people in on it, it is officially a scheme." He's enjoying this development far more than is necessary. "I'd wager Rewind decided to ping Perceptor, although hopefully not as obnoxiously often as you pinged me. That would explain why Perceptor wanted a break. Why a break when we'd been four days strong with no real need to stop? I knew he was up to something. A friend asking questions sounds like a scheme to me." 

"There's no scheme. This is me doing things myself. I didn't want Rewind to start pinging people and asking questions." 

"Probably shouldn't have told him then, because he's just gone over your head." Brainstorm shrugs. "Anyway, enough about your personal life. I'll see you after you find Prowl and hash out where you want to go with this project. Maybe exercise your fingers on a live patient again." 

That mental picture doesn't sit well with him. Neither does the slow realization that if Brainstorm suspected Perceptor was up to something, Prowl undoubtedly knew it was going to happen. If his scientists are on break, there's no science for Prowl to be overseeing. Which means he's chosen to be somewhere else on the station while they're both here chatting uninhibited with people outside their nondisclosure agreements. 

Chromedome gets to his feet. Watching Rewind and Perceptor talk isn't going to get him anywhere. It's time to find Prowl before Prowl finds Rewind and asks him why Perceptor ground his entire operation to a halt just so he could have a chat with Rewind. As he leaves the Exit Rooms he can feel all three of them watching him.

 

He's not going to chance calling Prowl from his hab suite. The only place he has that's private both from the station's general populous and from Rewind is his office in the morgue. He's still on the clock too. Even if he is the only coroner on the station, he can't disappear for too long. 

He keys open the door to the morgue and then jolts to a stop as he sees Prowl standing in the exact same spot he stood when he first offered Chromedome a job. They lock gazes for an uncomfortable moment, Chromedome frozen awkwardly in the doorway. Judging by the expression on his face, Prowl's probably been waiting for a while. He motions for him to come inside. 

"My position is still classified and I'm trying to stay out of the eyes of the public, so if you'd close the door I'd appreciate it." 

"I guess you let yourself in," Chromedome says, recovering. He locks the door behind himself. The morgue is a mess. He tries to clean up whenever he knows he has visitors coming, but he didn't expect anyone to drop by while he stepped out to talk to Brainstorm. He's not entirely sure what he's going to say to Prowl now that they're face to face again. He isn't prepared for this confrontation yet, but he's practiced at acting through his unease. 

"So, are you here to ask me about my whereabouts over the last hour?" he asks, stepping around Prowl to drape a sheet over a body on one of the examination tables. 

"No, I'm here because I'm trying to be lenient with you. I already know where you've been." Prowl's voice is angry and the words clipped, but Chromedome can tell he's restraining himself from invoking the ramifications he's certainly justified to invoke considering what just went down in the Exit Rooms. "I came to you with this project because we were friends once and I thought I could trust you to keep this under wraps even if you did refuse. Apparently I was wrong." 

"You want an explanation," he says. For all he is trying to play this cool, he is fearfully aware how badly this conversation could end for him. Especially if he just lets Prowl talk unimpeded. 

"I don't know if I really care about your explanation at this point, but I'll take it. I understand why you questioned Brainstorm and I can rationalize why you told Rewind, but I'm not entirely clear on why you started digging here in the first place. You could have known exactly what I'm spearheading if you'd agreed to help me when I originally asked. So why refuse?" 

He's convinced he already knows. Prowl lives with all his prediction models of other people's reactions and this is just another one he believes has run its course. Allowing Chromedome to explain is just ironing out the details. High Command is a good fit for him because he never seems to be surprised. It's a useful intimidation tactic, and Prowl loves a good tactical play. 

Chromedome tries to put the words together in his head before he speaks them. He'll only get one shot at this and he needs to get it right. 

"I turned you down because I'm retired. Because that's what I'm supposed to say. No more live patients. I do war crime autopsies now." He closes a second body back into cold storage. There are a lot of them in there, waiting for processing. His nightmares have only been getting worse, but that's beside the point. "You weren't offering me hard information in your pitch, and I wasn't going to agree to something just to find out what it was. But the whole thing implied shadowplay, Prowl. I'd wanted to believe we'd stopped doing it, and then you brought it to my attention in my own morgue that we haven't. Did you expect me to take that well?" 

Prowl doesn't look impressed to be offered a recap instead of an explanation. "It was a business proposal. Which you then turned down. I'm not interested in arguing the ethics of it with you after the fact. War is ugly. I don't expect you to understand." 

"I do understand," he says, one hand gripping the edge of the examination table, the dead Autobot still tented beneath a sheet—ready and waiting for Chromedome to stick his fingers in through his eyes and read each horrific last memory out of his brain for the death report. He's written a lot of them and he did ugly things for the Autobot machine before that. "I understand all the horrors of war, and you know it. Don't talk down to me here." As much as Chromedome tries to sweep his own past under the rug, he is not going to let Prowl get away with ignoring it here. 

That gets a reaction. Prowl finally looks at Chromedome instead casting his periodic dismissive glances at the door. He's distracted by his project and the ways Chromedome has made him lose control of it, but he sees how his approach to this conversation could be interpreted as unfair. "I'm not talking down to you. I'm trying not to make this personal." 

"It's been personal from the start. Out of all the resumes you could have chosen, why choose mine? Because we have history. You knew how I feel about shadowplay when you came to me. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of my history do and don't matter. This is personal." 

"You're right," he says after a moment, his voice softer and dipping out of his rank. There's a hint of genuine apology in it. It's fleeting, but it's there. "But I'm not here for that. And you have yet to explain." 

He's not here for the remains of their friendship, even if his past trust in Chromedome is what brought him to this room in the first place. And that's fine, because Chromedome isn't here for that either. 

"I don't like what you're doing," he says, stepping into Prowl's opening. "I don't know if I'm comfortable not being involved either. For personal reasons. I've been looking for you because I changed my mind. I'll do your shadowplay for you." 

He doesn't say anything for a second, his jaw set as he turns over possible outcomes for this new development. It's not what Prowl was expecting and Prowl doesn't like being caught off guard, but he does adapt to it. "You changed your mind." He says it more to himself than to Chromedome, equal parts disappointed and impressed. "You know, I didn't expect this. I thought you'd developed more integrity than my predictions implied." 

"Yeah, well. I guess we don't know each other that well anymore." 

Prowl frowns. He doesn't want to get pulled back into the personal aspects of this. Chromedome watches his steel himself back to business, the shred of open sincerity fading from Prowl's eyes. He was being accommodating before. It's time to be serious now. 

"It's nice that you want to help but like I said last time, I had alternatives lined up. Said alternative may have decided to stall the entire operation in order to talk to an outsider I never personally invited onto the project, but he is still who I chose to use. Past tense." 

"You're finished?" 

"Not with the entire project, but we're done with that step. You're extraneous at this point. You're actually a detriment, considering distribution of black level classified information is a felony offense." 

Chromedome didn't think this would go out of his control until that last, terrifying sentence. "I didn't distribute it," he blurts out. "It hasn't gone public." 

"You have the potential to," Prowl says slowly, making sure he's understood. "Please understand that I am choosing not to threaten Rewind's wellbeing here even though I'm sure his conversation with Perceptor was not your idea. Right now I am threatening you. There are serious repercussions for how far you've disregarded your contract. I know exactly which legal loopholes I can hang you on that will never expose the ethics I've bent to be working on what I am. It is entirely within my bounds to clap you in irons and lock you up somewhere you will not see the outside of for a very long time." He pauses, relaxing a bit out of his aggressive jargon. "This is only a threat, though, not an action. It's your undeserved second chance not to screw up. You tell no one anything about this ever again. Do you understand?" 

Prowl is good at using questions to reinforce his threats. He's not being kind anymore even if he is being generous. Chromedome already feels like he's being talked down to again, but that's just the tone Prowl uses when he has all the cards in his hand to destroy someone. Chromedome's backed himself into a corner and everyone in this room knows trying to squeeze his way out of this is only going to end badly. 

"Do you want me to sign another nondisclosure agreement?" he asks, angry with himself and with Prowl too. 

"I expect you to actually keep it this time. Don't disappoint me again." He produces another datapad identical to the first one. He hands it over and Chromedome barely even reads the header before he signs it and hands it back. He's not interested in pushing this anymore. 

"Good." 

The morgue door chimes. Chromedome nearly jumps, startled to be caught standing in a room colluding with someone he shouldn't be. 

"I'm assuming that's your co-conspirator," Prowl says, motioning Chromedome to answer it. "Now I can have him sign a similar document and this can be over with." 

He hesitates. "Did you plan this?" Chromedome asks, a little betrayed at the notion. As soon as he opens that door Rewind will see him in here talking to Prowl, signing paperwork for something outside his position, and suddenly every single one of the doubts and suspicions Rewind shared with him will have solid ground to stand on. Every single one. But Prowl is waiting and Rewind is waiting too, and there's nothing he can do but let Rewind in and face the consequences. He steps over to the door slowly and opens it. 

"Hey," he murmurs in soft, awkward greeting. Every joint in Rewind's body goes stiff and wary when he sees Prowl behind Chromedome. "You should come in. The three of us need to discuss something." 

Rewind has no other choice as he steps inside. He's hesitant, wondering what he's missed. Unsure if this is about his conversation with Perceptor or if it's also about something the two of them decided while he wasn't here. "The three of us? What is this, Chromedome?" he asks, his tone distrustful. He gets closer and whispers, "I don't like this. Tell me you're not doing this." 

"I'm not," Chromedome tells him quietly. "I already said that." 

"If you think this doesn't look suspicious, you're delusional." He looks at Chromedome, worried that he's already been overruled. 

Chromedome feels the guilt settling in thick, but they can't talk about this now. "It definitely looks suspicious." 

Prowl taps a finger against the edge of his datapad to get their attention. "I'm not recruiting Chromedome to work on my project. He turned me down last week." He doesn't want to witness their little interpersonal squabble. He has an operation to run and right now he wants the focus on him so he can address this and get back to his other work. "This is concerning what I believe is a leak of classified information. He's told you a few things you shouldn't have heard." 

"That was a private conversation," Rewind says carefully. 

"Prowl—" Chromedome warns. 

Prowl ignores him. "The kind of conversation it was is irrelevant. My problem lies with the fact that the information discussed did not stay private. I have recordings of queries run through Kimia's database concerning top secret science I showed Chromedome and no one else, and evidence that suggests you were the one who made those queries. And I don't think I need to explain how asking Perceptor to postpone his work to answer a few of your questions is far outside the intentions of his contract. Whatever you learned from him is also classified. You shouldn't be privy to it." 

"Are—" Rewind looks to Chromedome, nervous and furious at once, then back to Prowl. "Are you charging me with something?" 

"No. I'm clarifying some things. I'm letting you know that I know what the two of you have been doing over this past week, and that is it unacceptable. Call this an off the record cease-and-desist, if you will." 

Chromedome steps in before Rewind can respond. "Prowl, stop it. Just have him sign the nondisclosure agreement. And then get out of my morgue." 

Prowl looks at him, surprised to see him suddenly develop some integrity. He offers the same datapad to Rewind without another word. Rewind hesitates, uncomfortable with this entire situation and angry that Chromedome knew this was coming and didn't tell him. He takes the datapad out of Prowl's hand and makes them wait as he reads through the fine print of the confidentiality clause. 

Eventually he looks back up at Prowl, armed with the legal minutia he knows can ruin him if he's not careful. "And signing this means that as long as I don't distribute or continue to research any of the information I may have been told regarding your project, that I won't be prosecuted?" 

"Yes," Prowl says. 

"Fine," Rewind mutters as he signs it. He hands it back to Prowl. 

"Good. Thank you. Now I can retrieve my scientists and get back to work." Prowl holds Chromedome's gaze for a moment. "Sorry to leave on such a sour note," he says to both of them with a hint of real sincerity before he steps around Rewind and unceremoniously lets himself out. 

Prowl's shoddy apology doesn't soften the fact that he threatened Rewind in front of Chromedome to make a point, or the way he dismantled Chromedome's entire plan to begin with. Chromedome is furious and he's glad to see Prowl gone, but this is nowhere near over. 

Rewind shakes his head, still staring at the closed doorway. "You're unbelievable," he says to Chromedome. 

He shouldn't be getting defensive with Rewind but after dealing with Prowl he can't help it. "He was already in here when I came back. I didn't ask him to meet me. I wasn't scheming with him." 

"I don't care," Rewind says, annoyed to hear excuses instead of the actual apology he deserves. "I don't care what you two could have agreed to while I wasn't here. I don't want to think about that right now." The sneak attack contract is just the culmination of the long line of questionable decisions Chromedome's made over the past week. Rewind had outright said he didn't want this to end in legal action, and they just barely escaped that here. "He could have charged us for this, Chromedome. You don't think. You never think about these things." 

"I did think about it. I know him well enough to know he wouldn't actually charge me." The amount of thinking he did about changing his mind and helping Prowl isn't something he's willing to admit right now, but that doesn't change the fact that he felt he had this all under control until Prowl appeared in his morgue without warning. "I didn't think he'd drag you in here to have you sign paperwork. He wouldn't have even showed up if you had listened to me and hadn't—" 

"Don't you dare try to pin this on me," Rewind bites out. "I don't care what excuse you have this time. I asked you to look after yourself and you didn't. Instead you kept digging into his classified project, and through that you put me at risk. That's what happened. You don't get to take this back or make it look like something else happened." He only asked two things, and Chromedome failed to do both. No amount of excuses is ever going to change that. Rewind has every right to be furious. "That's what happened and this is your fault." 

Chromedome backs down. "You're right. I wasn't trying to pin this on you or dodge the blame, I just—" He's too much of a mess of conflicted emotions to explain right now. "I'm sorry." 

"Whatever." Rewind refuses to look at him. He waves a hand dismissively through the air. There's more to be said here and more they need to talk about, but he is too hurt and angry to do that right now. "Don't talk to me." 

"Rewind—" 

"Don't!" Rewind crosses the room and leaves through the same door Prowl did. 

Chromedome stands there for a moment, reeling. Too much has happened at once. He's still angry and frustrated with Prowl refusing to let him back onto the project, and he said all the wrong things to Rewind because of it. Not just because of that, though. Rewind is right. He was stupid about this. He made some stupid decisions he should have considered more wisely. 

He can't do anything to fix it now, though. Suddenly Chromedome has all the time in the world to do the paperwork he's been ignoring since Perceptor's ship first docked with Kimia. He leaves the body under its sheet on the examination table and goes to sit in the oppressive quiet of his office. 

 

Chromedome pulls overtime to keep out of Rewind's way. He spends the night in his office, face down on his paperwork just like old times in forensics. He tells himself he's not avoiding him so much as giving him space. Rewind will approach him again when he's ready. It's just that Rewind doesn't usually react to an argument by not saying anything at all. Avoidance sure, but the silent treatment is more Chromedome's thing. Usually Rewind makes a point of constantly reminding him what he did wrong. But this time there's nothing. No word at all. It feels like Rewind's using the silence to enforce his point, and Chromedome knows he should be listening. 

He writes up a formal apology with all the official letterheads and fonts and has it delivered confidentially in triplicate to Rewind's office. It's not cute so much as it's pathetic, but the longer Chromedome doesn't hear from Rewind, the more he stresses about it. Every time he stands in the morgue he's reminded of just how badly everything went down. All the things he could have done instead, but didn't. He doesn't push though. 

The problem is that he keeps thinking he should have accepted Prowl's offer a week ago. Sight unseen, he should have agreed and done whatever it was Prowl needed him to do in that sealed up back room. It would have been a simple contracted assignment and it wouldn't have gone wrong, and he definitely wouldn't have dragged Rewind into this. He wouldn't have even told him. 

But he did. Instead he declined it and tried to stick to the morals he decided on retirement, the morals Rewind constantly challenges him to hold. Chromedome saw Prowl with his shady project, and he thought that for once he'd be the one doing the right thing by not getting his hands dirty. For once Prowl would be the one in the wrong. But Chromedome guesses he's a little petty, because he couldn't just let that happen. He wanted to be in there to watch it happen, and he had to undo those morals and risk his well being to do that. And Rewind's well being too. 

Sometimes he wonders if this will ever start to come naturally or if he spent too long in the New Institute to adapt any time soon. Especially when old friends show up and offer him openings into the kinds of things he said he wasn't going to do anymore. 

He's nearly halfway through his paperwork when he finally gets a comm ping from Rewind. Voice only, but it's something. He's honestly surprised. 

"I've got a fun story," Rewind says when Chromedome answers. He sounds hesitant and still a little angry, but amused. "Wanna hear it?" 

That was definitely not the conversation starter he expected but he'll take it. "Sure." 

Rewind settles into his storyteller voice. "A couple of hours ago Kimia got an unscheduled docking request and put the ship down unceremoniously on one of the unused pads. Seems normal enough until you do a little digging to find that it wasn't a restocking ship running late as they sometimes do, but in fact a personal jumpship. Kimia's location is black level classified. Even if a personal ship was unlucky enough to get lost and bump into the station entirely by chance, it wouldn't have the clearance to see the inside of the docking bay. But this one's ID checked out." 

"We've got another visitor," Chromedome says, stepping into the narrative gap. 

"Right. You'll never guess who it is. And I'm not just saying that to get you guessing. You literally will never guess." 

The quiet excitement in Rewind's voice is a little infectious. Chromedome could guess but it'd ruin the story. "All right. So who is it?" 

"I haven't seen him myself, but Springer is on board." 

He was expecting Optimus Prime or Ultra Magnus or maybe someone he's never heard of before who just so happens to be an agent behind Decepticon lines. For all the weaponry the station has shipped out for the Wreckers to test, Springer has never set foot on Kimia before. He shouldn't even need the entrance codes. "You're right. I never would have guessed." 

"It doesn't end there, though," Rewind continues. "As soon as he left his ship he went looking for Prowl as loudly as possible. And by that I mean yelling his name down the hallways. It's a three hundred meter trek from the low-use side of the docking bay to Perceptor's lab, not to mention the various security checks along the way. Most of the station doesn't even know Prowl is here and yet he got through each check in record time, no questions asked. Springer either has very good clearance or someone knew he was coming and cleared the way for him." And they both know who that someone is. 

"How do you know about this, Rewind? I haven't heard any yelling. Have you been interviewing people about this already?" 

"I heard most of this secondhand from Ironfist but I did check it through the public camera feeds and he's not making up too much of it. And I guess I'm getting to my own subjective version of it in a minute here but it's only my first time telling it. I'll polish it later." 

He's cute. "Okay. So Springer's here." 

"This is where it gets a little bit sketchier because I have no eyewitnesses yet. But I've got a theory. I'm gonna send you a composite image file." 

The download pops up in his work inbox and he accepts it. He opens it to find two pictures of Prowl placed side by side—one of them grainy security camera feed timestamped very recently, and the other undoubtedly from the time the three of them were in the morgue together. Chromedome winces when he sees the second picture and puts a hand over his face. Rewind definitely picked that one on purpose to remind him but he'd rather not interrupt the story. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?" 

"I'm no expert on structural damage but I've seen a lot of battered faces in my day and so have you. What's your take? My guess is that Springer did not like whatever he found back in the classified section of Kimia, because it looks like he punched Prowl in the face." 

Rewind sounds quietly delighted about this. Chromedome looks at the photos again and cannot deny the likelihood. "Wow. I can't believe I didn't get to see that." 

"I know! I'd kill to have been able to film it!" 

Chromedome laughs, shaking his head at Rewind's enthusiasm. "Prowl would try to repossess that video immediately." 

"Still! It's an historic event." 

It's good to hear Rewind's voice even if it's just a silly spiteful story to break the ice. Chromedome sits there for a moment, glad but trying to find the courage to bring up what they actually need to talk about. For all he rehearsed this in his head, he doesn't really know where to start. "So, uh. Did you get my memo?" 

"All three of them," Rewind says, most of the amusement dropping out of his voice. 

"I'm sorry." It's hard to say. It's hard to have this conversation at all, but it's important. "You were right. I gambled way more on this than I should have, and I not only risked myself to do it, I risked you too. It wasn't a conscious decision, but I should have realized sooner what was going on. Where my motivations were leading me, I guess. It was stupid of me." 

"Yeah, it was." He doesn't say anything for a moment and Chromedome knows better than to cut in. "Look. I'm still angry. I'm really angry. I don't know what's going on in your head or if I even trust you to tell me the whole truth. I hope you learned something from this. But I don't want to talk about that right now. It's still too fresh and I'm too angry. I just wanted to make sure you're okay. You're not— I don't know. Doing your sad Chromedome thing."

He's not entirely sure how to respond to that. He hadn't expected Rewind to change the topic. "I've been doing my paperwork. Working my way through cold storage." 

"Moping." 

"Can you really call it moping when you know you're actually in the wrong?" 

Rewind's end goes silent for a moment. 

"And how are you," Chromedome asks awkwardly. "Besides angry out of your mind?" 

"Good. Got some work done splicing together holofeeds of one of the not-quite-important battles. In between tracking down public footage of Springer, I mean. That was fun but not the paying kind of fun." 

The silence stretches out again. Chromedome runs a hand down his face, not sure what to do. Rewind would hang up if he was done, but he hasn't yet. He's waiting on Chromedome's move. "Do you, uh. Do you want to meet up tomorrow or something and we can talk?" 

He takes his time to consider it. "Sure. Why don't you stop by the hab suite? Sleeping on your desk isn't quite the same." 

"Yeah." 

"Okay, see you then." 

"Thanks for the story, Rewind." 

"Thanks for listening." 

 

They make up eventually. It's rocky and tense, but they do. Rewind sees the best in everyone, even when his trust has been shaken. It's up to Chromedome to learn from this mistake, because Rewind always forgives. 

Prowl and Springer and Perceptor all leave at once, and Chromedome doesn't even know they're gone until Brainstorm shows up at the morgue door to flop unceremoniously into Chromedome's spare chair, where he pouts and says nothing for two straight hours. They don't talk about it. 

Chromedome keeps a watch on the news feeds, incubating theories, tracking all of the returning war heroes who spout rare bursts of hard logic that don't quite seem to fit into the script. Even with what he knows, it could still be anyone. 

"Just let it go," Rewind tells him. "You don't want to get mixed up in that again, do you?"

He knows he's right. The itch will fade with time. 

 

(Years later, Kimia will crash down onto a reborn Cybertron, and—unfortunately for the historian—though the players are not always in the same roles, history repeats itself.) 


End file.
